Interview with Punxsutawney Phil

Every Feb. 2, Punxsutawney Phil, a groundhog, is pulled from a tree stump. If he sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t, spring is just ahead. As I spoke with Phil about a recent controversy involving People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), he wore dark sunglasses, smoked an unfiltered Camel cigarette and sipped bourbon.

Purcell: PETA says that groundhogs are constantly alert when out of their burrows — that yanking you out of a stump before bright lights and a large crowd is tantamount to animal cruelty. They want you to be replaced with an animatronic groundhog. What say you?

Phil: Man, those cats have to lighten up. Do I dig the big crowds and bright lights? No, but let’s put things in perspective. I only work one day a year. Show me a groundhog who wouldn’t want a gig like that.

Purcell: PETA argues that your natural cycle has been disrupted. You should be hibernating this time of the year.

Phil: Hibernating is for chumps. Only a fool would want to be in a comatose state in a dirt hole, when he could live a life of luxury indoors.

Purcell: But the organizers of the event, the Inner Circle, are exploiting you for human entertainment and profit.

Phil: That profit has afforded me all the luxuries a groundhog could want. I get free health care from my personal veterinarian. I eat as much lettuce, carrots, apples and grains as I want. I have a fine bachelor burrow that includes a running brook. And the Inner Circle fellows supply me with three female companions — the finest-looking ground dwellers this side of the Mississippi.

Purcell: The Inner Circle is trafficking in woodchucks of the night! Sir, PETA believes you’d be happier in your natural habitat.

Phil: My natural habitat involves becoming the dinner of several larger creatures. Look, man, the cats at PETA need to lighten up. America needs to lighten up. You Americans need to get your priorities in order.

Purcell: Our priorities?

Phil: Look, there is animal cruelty out there. PETA does some good things fighting against it. But complaining about me is ridiculous. There are real problems in the world — poverty, pain, suffering. Even America is struggling.

Purcell: What is your point?

Phil: My point is that many of you cats are spoiled. You’ve misused your wealth — taken it for granted. Many of you no longer know where wealth comes from or how it is maintained. You elect politicians who do bone-headed things to squash it — they destroyed California and are trying to do likewise to the whole country.

Purcell: You follow our politics?

Phil: I read the papers every day — before I do my business on them. Look, your “educated” people lack common sense. They are easily misled by silver-tongued politicians. Many went broke investing in real estate schemes because they assumed prices would never go down.

Purcell: You’re losing me, groundhog.

Phil: As your people attained material wealth, you let yourselves become spiritually and emotionally poor. So desperate are you for meaning, you latch on to any nutty “cause.” One involves meddling with the well-being of a groundhog in Punxsutawney, who is fully aware of his blessings.

Purcell: You’ve been brainwashed, Phil. We need to break you out of here.

Phil: If you or anyone disrupts my groundhog heaven, you’ll experience a burrow where the sun don’t shine.

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Well said, Tom (and you, too, Phil)! We need to get our priorities straight, and mind our own business (which, by the way, isn’t going too well in case anyone hadn’t noticed). I feel sorry for Phil one day a year; the rest of the 364 days of the year, he’s got a life my local groundhogs couldn’t even dream of!

Indeed, one of the things people all around the world need is less (FAR less) interference in their daily lives from their governments … and the more remote the government, the more non-interference (aka freedom) is needed.